It's Fashion Friday!: I'll Bring the Wallets, You Bring the Dough!!!!

Salvatore Ferragamo
Icona French Wallet $425
This one's for Grandma.

            Let’s get something straight. A stocking stuffer does not have its status determined by its size, but by its price. iPhone – NOT a stocking stuffer. Candy pooping reindeer – STOCKING STUFFER. Now that we have that straight… A fantastic holiday gift idea, and a particular favorite accessory of mine, is the wallet! Wallets, wristlets, cosmetic pouches, card cases, money clips: all of these delightful little gems come in a range of styles, qualities and prices. This means that you can get them as “I love you so much!” gifts to yourself, “Thanks for employing me,” gifts for your boss, “I had to spend a lot of money on you, but you have such horrible taste in everything I didn’t know what else to get for you,” presents for matriarchal family members, “Holidays are awkward - this is personal, but not so personal that there’s worry of wedding bells,” gifts for boyfriends/girlfriends, or even “This is a cute way to spruce up the inside of your purse and it didn’t cost me much!” for your girlfriends. Wallets as gifts for men tend to be a bit more personal as they seem to use one until it is completely falling to pieces and then replace it. With us ladies, it’s like handbags. Excess is to be expected. Different wallets exist for different bags, moods, and seasons.

Comme des Garçons
Bright Star Wallet $210

            Designer wallets all come with hefty multiple hundred dollar price tags. Even after selling them, I’m going to be honest with you – I'm not entirely certain why they’re so pricey. Saffiano leather is a draw, yes (that’s that lovely laser textured leather, and it does make your product more durable to things like that rude, grabby girl’s finger nails and cats). Brass zippers last longer and generally work a bit better. The colors are nice. As long as your product is made of leather and not plastic, however, it should be fairly durable! Maybe people won’t say, “OOH, she has a PRADA wallet!” when you go to pay for things, but do you really need to hear that to move on with your day? These fill the “had to spend a lot of money on you” gift category.

Miu Miu Matelassé
Leather Wallet $480

If you’re going to shell out the cash for a wallet/wristlet for yourself, it should at least have something exciting going on with its appearance, other than a designer logo. I love Comme des Garçons for interesting wallets. I can’t figure out for the life of me why they’re so expensive, other than the cool quotient. This little wallet sure is fun! It also comes in a pouch style (no strap, so sadly not a wristlet). Colorful. Shiny. Sure to bring smiles. They have some polka dot embossed pieces as well that are quite rich in color. For texture, Miu Miu does the matelassé leather wallets. I absolutely love this style. This is on the top end of what I deem an acceptable amount to pay for a wallet. I’m not even going to discuss wallets that cost more than this. There are people starving on the street in the cold. If you are thinking about buying an $800 wallet, I strongly suggest you think about just how ridiculous that is and buy the $480 wallet (which is ALSO ridiculous btw) and give the other $300 to a homeless shelter.

Hobo 'Lauren' Double
Frame Clutch $128

Let’s explore the personal/not so personal price range for girlfriends, girlfriends of family members, and just plain old NORMAL people. Some brands I really like for quality/style/price are Hobo, Lodis, and Cole Haan. Hobo makes the double frame clutch. The advantage to this lovely “wallet” is that you can fill it with all kinds of stuff for a night out on the town. It can take the place of a handbag. (It’s funny, gentlemen. As much as the ladies love to accumulate handbags, they find them to be a giant pain in the ass to haul around.) The drawback is that you have to hold it in your hand wherever you go, hence the term “clutch.” If you get a shiny one, though, it’s not so bad. You can stare at it in the light and entertain yourself whilst those around you start to wonder about your level of sanity. These run a little over $100 depending on the style. I don’t know anyone with one of these who doesn’t love it, including myself. 

Lodis 'Audrey'
Continental Wallet $88

Lodis just makes lovely leather products. Sometimes they have really fun wacky wallets for people who want something different. I have a fluorescent yellow one with dead flowers shellacked into it. They almost always carry very basic wallets – ziparounds, frame, continental (long), and French (short, squat). And business card cases! For a less expensive or a “thanks for employing me” gift.

Cole Haan 'Jitney'
Electronic Wristlet $78

I love the idea of a wristlet. It used to be that you could only get wristlets at Coach, but now Cole Haan has quite a few of them and I really prefer their leathers. I find the wristlet far superior to the clutch for normal daily use. You put that little loop around your wrist, and you let go, and it just hangs there! Tada! Magic. I can be absent minded and know that my wallet is attached to my body. Just like my mittens used to be. My brilliant friend Jenifer has an entirely different use for the wristlet. She uses multiples of them to organize the inside of her handbag. Coach should probably be paying her for the good press she’s giving them.

Lulu Wallet from Sears $9.98

Now if you’d like a cute stocking stuffer style wallet to give as a gift, you can pay a stocking stuffer price ($9.98) and purchase this one at Sears. It’s shiny. It’s silly. It’s fun. It’s probably going to fall apart in a couple of months. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Rather than being sad about poorly made $10 wallets, I would approach this the same way I approach broken wine glasses. The sooner you break them all, the sooner you get to pick out new ones! 

Cole Haan Reflective
Slim Wallet in
Tango Red $98

         If you want to buy a wallet, money clip, card case for your man, do not fear... I’m not going to leave you hanging. While I am not a man and can’t tell you for sure what I would need in a men’s wallet, I once sold quite a lot of them. From my experience, if you’re not 100% certain he likes ornately decorated stuff, he probably doesn’t want a jacked up wallet. Like this Cole Haan reflective wallet in Tango Red? PROBABLY NOT. It needs to be soft enough leather that it’s not going to be painful in the back pocket, yet also durable. It’s not a good thing when the corners start coming apart or the stitching starts coming out. Some guys stuff way more stuff than they should in those poor bi-folds. (No one carries trifold wallets anymore, except very strange clientele). I really liked to sell this textured bifold at Ferragamo, though I don’t remember it costing $295. Inflation? It’s simple and durable. If you’ve found a man worth keeping, this wallet is worth buying. Money clips are fun too for a more old-fashioned type, or someone who routinely has lots of cash. Just don’t get the magnetic ones. They seem really great, until that one absent minded day when the guy puts a credit card in with his cash…… 

Salvatore Ferragamo Bifold
in Embossed Calfskin $295

Special Sunday Edition!: Don't Do Drugs At Work

$798 for a croquet set? No wonder
the Queen of Hearts used Flamingos
and Hedgehogs. 

           I am proud to say I live in one of the states where it is almost legal to smoke marijuana. Massachusetts legalized medical marijuana at this most recent election. I don’t actually partake in this activity, but being one of those wacky libertarian types, I’m all for legalizing all the drugs. So YAY Massachusetts. I’m not sure if medical marijuana is legal in Pennsylvania. I’m pretty sure there aren’t any other recreational non-prescription drugs legal in Pennsylvania. This leads me to the obvious question, “What on earth are the buyers at Anthropologie smoking for breakfast?”

            For once, I am actually not referring to their apparel, while I’m sure they have some really outstanding “My blind Grandma who thinks it’s still 1976 wouldn’t even wear that” sweaters, as they manage to find every winter. (Don’t be fooled, they have nice things too. If you frequently shop at this store, however, or – ahem – used to have to hide these sweaters in weird places around the store to make room for actually sellable merchandise, you know what I’m talking about). At this moment I would like to direct you to their special “Gadgets & Gear” section under the "gifts" heading on their website.

            I think I would call it something else. Perhaps, “If Boy Scouts Styled Your Home,” “Wood Shop For Apple,” “Artistic Looking Audio Equipment For People Who Don’t Care About Sound,” or “Really Expensive Stuff I Could Have Made With Refuse From My Backyard, A Saw, And Some Sandpaper.” Now there are a few affordable things on this page. And by affordable, I’m referring to the $30 wooden Lego knockoffs and the $36 calculator that appears to have bamboo glued to it.

Yellow Meatloaf Speaker

Ce n'est pas un haut-parleur.
(This is not a speaker). 

            They have lots of audio equipment! I’m an audiophile. What is that, you may ask? The MP3 makes me cringe. I want an LP on a turntable, hooked into an amp, paired with a set of warm sounding speakers, with a full range of sound from low Hz to high Hz, all wired with speaker wire I cut myself. Some people want HDTV. I want good sounds. I can’t afford them. Good audio equipment is expensive, BUT it’s not as expensive as the stuff that Anthro’s peddling! They have three speaker options for you. There’s a $128 fake wood, oh sorry, “faux bois” speaker that looks like a badly molded spray painted meatloaf. 

For $400-$600 you could have some “Gallery Speakers” by Mikal Hameed. 

There’s no way these sound good – there aren’t enough cables coming out of the back of them. Also, Mikal Hameed is an artist who does cool stuff that’s NOT this (Think turning an Eames lounge chair into a full on turntable sound machine). Check it out here. There are also the $1200 speakers that look like Birdhouses. Oh, and I guess I shouldn’t forget the $1000 megaphone you can stick your Iphone in. My mom thought it was a urinal.

Cornucopia Urinal
iPhone Amp?

Play music for your plants. 

            Remember the turntable? I had a Stanton STR8-80 Direct Drive BLAH BLAH BLAH  - it worked just fine and it cost maybe $200. Anthropologie has TWO options for you for turntables! One of them is on a sliceof tree trunk for $1298!!!!! And what do they tell you about it? It’s made of wood and glass and it’s 5”x15”x15.” Hrmm. I think they’re missing some tech specs. The second one is $1600. It comes with a “parts kit.” The real draw, however, is that there is a special hole in it for a potted plant. I know I like to water plants on top of my electronics. That’s a recipe for good old-fashioned fun.

            I’m a dinosaur with my audio wishes. The real money is in Apple product docking stations. Of the five that are offered, my favorite is the “iTree DockingStation.” It’s a 6 to 13 foot long log that you stick your iPhone or iPod into. It came from Austria so there were expensive plane tickets involved. I think you also have to reimburse the cost of the fuel for the plane, and perhaps there may be some pilots’ bar tabs built into the cost as well. It costs $15000.

Everyone wants a log. Just like Ren and Stimpy said.

This looks frustrating.

            If that’s too expensive for you, you could always buy the $6000 copper bicycle. You would probably have to strap a bomb to it to keep it from getting stolen. And you couldn’t ride it in the rain, unless you wanted it and your clothes to turn green. Better get an indoors gift. How about a ping-pong table shaped like Easter Island? Ping-pong isn’t hard enough on a rectangular table, so we might as well cut most of the table away. It’s for over-achievers. Or Olympians. Or people with way too much cash, since it’s $14,800.

            I’m not sure what is more ass-backwards about this whole selection of gadgets, the fact that Anthropologie thinks that you should buy them, or that they chose to put them under a heading of Gifts. I’ll be sure to include some $15,000 items on my wishlist this Christmas, which I should have ready for you by Tuesday. And I am fairly certain that it will not include ANY of the things on this page. OY MARY Anthropologie, get the gas lines in your corporate building checked! And for heavens sake, stop eating the lead paint.